A 2020 MPI Study revealed that 83% of manufacturing leaders see Industry 4.0 as “extremely or very important”, and 56% believe that Industry 4.0 will have a “significant impact” in the next five years. However, some organisations are wary of change due to scepticism, lack of skills, or financial complications. Despite this, COVID-19 has acted as a catalyst for investment.

With a focus on the “smart factory”, Industry 4.0 started over a decade ago. As the cost of sensor technology has decreased, adoption has increased. Martin Barkman, SVP and Global Head of Solution Management for Digital Supply Chain at SAP, is quoted to have said that Industry 4.0 has expanded from the factory and into the entire supply chain.

The four pillars of Industry 4.0 are detailed in the article:

• Intelligent Products: Allows for last-minute engineering changes. This enables more flexibility in catering to changing customer requirements during production. Constant communication throughout the process improves design, reduces costs, and increases customer satisfaction.
• Intelligent Assets: Allows for capturing and leveraging data. Digital twins help to analyse, monitor, optimise, and maintain physical assets. It creates balance between availability, asset health, and profitability. These intelligent assets are moving from responsive to predictive, which prevents failing machinery, in turn leading to reduced costs and repairs.
• Intelligent Factories: Digital supply chain capabilities and greater connectivity increases shop floor visibility, agility of operations, and helps to identify process bottlenecks. Strict production lines are then transformed into flexible manufacturing cells.
• Empowered People: Empowering employees is key to long-term success. Despite increased automation, new operations and tasks will be created that require human decisions. Training individuals is vital.

The article concludes by recognising the pandemic as a disruptive function for evolution and change within the manufacturing industry. Businesses who digitise their processes and integrate Industry 4.0 techniques are in the best position currently, and will be post-COVID as well.

One of their open architecture, cloud-based XR platforms leverages the following advantageous technologies: low-latency remote rendering, 3D Artificial Intelligence-based Spatial Mapping, and distributed computing. These features allow for high precision, high quality, and high performance in scalable immersive experiences. Seamless integration with any device or application makes it a cross-platform solution that reduces costs, increases revenue, and improves productivity.

During a combined 60 years of experience, co-founders Rishi Ranjan, Dijam Panigrahi and Venkat R. Dass have worked in building, deploying, and marketing leading technologies, including ones at AREA member Qualcomm. As a result of this work in supporting AR/VR applications, they were aware of how to enable high quality AR/VR experiences on any device. Their platforms have been supporting companies in construction, automotive, and aerospace since 2018.

What Can AR and MR Do?

• Assist computer-aided design capabilities
• Help engineers to compare correctness of a design faster
• Power real-time remote augmentation, allowing complex models to run on mobile devices
• Enable realistic product visualisation and remote collaboration
• Create a virtual environment for remote training, repair, and maintenance
• Assist product design by providing data on how, where, and when customers use the product

Panigrahi has said that AR/VR has become even more vital for business continuity, productivity, and efficiency due to the pandemic. The technology allows for remote collaboration, remote training, visualisation of construction vehicles, remote maintenance and repair, and remote customer support.

Benefits of Grid Raster’s Platform in Construction:

• High performance: supports large, high-fidelity AR/VR/MR environments without 3D asset optimisation, which saves money and time.
• Highly scalable: scales seamlessly based on usage, location, and asset.
• Highly secure: provides multi-level security involving access, authorisation, and encryption.
• Device agnostic: provides support across devices and offers multi/cross-platform support.
• API-based integration: easily integrates with CAD/CAM and 3D assets, allowing reuse of the latter.

Further benefits mentioned in the article include:

• Increased productivity
• Saving time and money
• Better sharing and collaboration
• Almost one-third of companies reported a 25% increase in productivity, with 61% seeing 20% cost savings (according to Grid Raster)
• 40% increase in productivity in manufacturing process, repair and maintenance
• Increased safety
• Increased accuracy, effectiveness, and efficiency

Many entry-level technicians can perform at expert level with AR-assisted instructions, which would usually take years to achieve. Despite initial reluctance to use the technology from more experienced engineers, once they begin, the value of AR/VR encourages them to continue using it.

Current challenges to overcome with integrating the technology include:

• Device display (e.g. resolution)
• Network bandwidth
• Connection quality

Panigrahi further states that cloud-based immersive experiences will be key for widespread AR/VR adoption in not only construction, but across most industries. Grid Raster will continue to push the boundaries of innovation.

Enterprises are now able to leverage AR technology due to: support of machine learning, advances in IoT sensors, deep neural networks rendered into eyewear, and specialised real-time video processing. Therefore, machine learning, cloud, and data can add further value to organisations and augment AR.

Industry examples listed in the article include:

• Guided assembly of complex components like airplane engines
• Oil rigs floating in the Arctic being remotely monitored from Houston using IoT sensor-enabled digital twins
• Off-floor monitoring of a continuous process manufacturing
• Following through on a new product from early design to final product launch, including detailed design, testing, and potential customer use all in AR

AR also enables digital twins. A greater amount of data is generated from sensors, giving a more immersive experience. The operational data gathered can be analysed or leveraged for other uses, such as arranging preventive maintenance. In field service, the data can offer insights into how users operate the product, allowing for better training.

Already, large enterprises are investing in IoT sensors and data analytics. The same strategy can be used to support enterprise AR, if the following technologies are integrated:

• APCs: put in places where digital twins will be, enabling data generation
• IoT edge capabilities: to gather data and allow for cloud services to be run to process data locally
• Cloud environment: to store data from sensors and physical twins.
• IoT hub capabilities: to act as a central hub for communication between physical twins and applications.
• Real-time processing capabilities: to process sensor data and feed it into AR applications.
• Mixed Reality software development toolkits: to build digital twins and other MR experiences.

Challenges of AR mentioned in the article include:

• Muscle strain and shoulder / spine discomfort
• No AR glasses alternatives for people with eye impairments
• Safety issues from prolonged use of contact lenses

In order to avoid these issues, enterprises should adhere to strict time limits for employees. Networks should also be audited to ensure they are secure and resilient.

The article concludes by stating that AR capabilities for digital twins allows for many opportunities for industries such as automotive, aerospace, energy, utilities, defense, and transportation. In particular, manufacturing is expected to change drastically for the better due to AR, with higher efficiency and reduced time.

Here is the list of hurdles towards mainstream enterprise AR adoption and ways of overcoming them:

• Scalability and expandability – An important requirement for enterprise AR is having the flexibility to apply to a range of industries. According to Nathan Pettyjohn, Lenovo’s Commercial AR/VR Lead, the most prominent AR use cases for the enterprise are training, remote assistance, and guided workflows. Bridgestone’s Brian Robinson believes that training is the most valuable AR use case, but the goal is to make ARVR technologies a “daily use item”. AR and VR also have independent use cases, as each is more suited to a particular task or activity.
• Speaking the language – Enterprises must also learn how to implement AR technology correctly and identifying the terminology. Deploying unstable apps with the potential to overload the network would be detrimental for AR adoption, so the type of AR a business chooses to integrate must match up with the intention.
• Cost – Depending on the budget for equipment in the organisation, cost of AR can be a challenge. Robinson claims that “showing rather than telling” can reduce price resistance of plant managers, as they see the benefits of AR technology first-hand.

You can read the full article on AR Insider here, or watch the fireside chat here.

Attendees were often drawn to events that invited networking and imparted memorable experiences. But as Covid-19 guidelines began to impact work and personal engagements, the appetite for virtual, immersive and interactive events became increasingly important. As more businesses now turn to virtual events to drive engagement with their communities, the role of communication needs to also transform to bring value to each attendee.

Competing for attendee attention at conferences has never been easy, and in virtual settings, it is even more of a challenge. Added to that are the multiple platforms and channels used by the event organizers and the attendee. So how can communication professionals tailor attendee experiences? Here are a few ways that can help spark the creative communication required for successful experiences.

Perception Of Attendees’ Place At Events

While in-person events allow event organizers the flexibility and space to design an atmosphere that can enhance what attendees experience, virtual experiences are often limited to the event application platform. But whether an event is in person or virtual, how attendees perceive their place there can influence where and how they spend their time.

To help close the perception gap for attendees, communication professionals have the opportunity to target their communication by specific groups, interests and activities. For example, apart from the promotion of the general conference, tailoring your communication plans to specific smaller audience segments, such as invite-only virtual group gatherings with CEOs, can be a high-touch experience. Tailoring the discussion around CEO topics and coupling them with fun, interactive experiences like wine tasting can help draw other like-minded attendees who also see the value of their time at the event.

In-The-Moment Communication

The unexpected is sure to happen at events. By including in-the-moment communication as part of the event strategy, the community of attendees has a greater chance to engage by staying in the know. Communication professionals can further curate in-the-moment event experiences by hosting pop-up interview segments with attendees and speakers across social channels.

Bringing this idea to life may start with selecting an important topic that attendees may be interested in. For example, last year, 65% of North American event creators said they believed that diversity was an important focus. Communication professionals can tap into the diversity trend by hosting pop-up interviews around this topic with a “behind-the-scenes” look with speakers before their presentation. This offers the community of attendees an opportunity to engage on the social channels and draw attention to the presentation with a common theme they can relate to and find value in. Leveraging social platforms like Twitter to host these interviews can further encourage in-the-moment communication with the community. 

Thought Leaders As Conference Curators

Historically, the communication program at events has primarily been about general promotion and logistics, helping attendees get to the next activity or presentation. The larger the event size, the more logistical communication is required. But with virtual events, communication professionals have an opportunity to be more impactful by scoping their role beyond tried-and-true strategies.

One way to encourage attendees to experience the conference beyond the traditional emails and Slack channels is by identifying the micro-community segments within your attendees, then partnering with thought leaders who share common interests with those communities to serve as conference experience curators. Having industry thought leaders help guide a micro-community of attendees can create a more intimate and valued virtual experience — one that aligns interest and may even prompt more engagement.

When done well, virtual events that are immersive experiences are unique and imaginative. Communication professionals have had to deliver on traditional plans, which include press releases and blogs to promote the event. But, as virtual or hybrid events become more mainstream, communication professionals have the opportunity to redesign their role and program to become a closer collaborator to event organizers and marketing overall.

Bedi details the following technology trends expected to come to pass by 2025, brought to light by COVID-19:

• Augmented Reality – AR will help to close the gap that remote work creates by facilitating digital collaboration. The technology has already demonstrated use cases in various industries, such as field service and medical applications, but robotics and haptics will move towards a wide-scale use of Mixed Reality in the future. Advanced videoconferencing technologies, such as holograms, are expected to advance alongside emerging 5G network and computing power. For remote workers, this reduces travel costs.
• Virtual assistants and enterprise chatbots – Since March 2020, there has been a 360% increase in virtual agent conversations across a range of industries due to remote work and social distancing. Artificial Intelligence chatbots will provide digital personal assistants for employees to ease their workload. Larger AI customer service operations will also increase speed of problem solving and data analysis for insights, giving a proactive service to improve customer experience.

Ubiquitous computing is said to be a “driving industry vision”, which current digital technologies are helping to achieve. It is anticipated that systems and devices will be integrated across platform and application.

The article concludes by acknowledging that full adoption and connecting these emerging technologies together will take time. However, digital transformation is vital for better business continuity, increased engagement, and improved productivity.

Read the full article here.

Broad-based Benefits

Automation is now useful in driving internal operations, customer engagement and other activities that are transforming the fintech industry. Whether it is banks, insurance companies or other financial services entities, automation is expediting almost all operations, including administrative functions.

The advent of technology such as AI and ML (machine learning) has led to a fast-changing landscape in enterprise payments. Traditionally, key processes dependent on human legacy systems were slow, cumbersome and prone to errors. Since automation is based on accurate and fast industry insights, automated operations take decisions speedily and safely without a propensity towards human error.

Consider the insurance industry. Conventionally, settlement of claims has always consumed a major proportion of an insurance player’s time, effort and expense. This was primarily because human minds needed to oversee a trove of information collated from a plethora of sources while analysing the data manually. Today, RPA (robotic process automation) streamlines this process by decoding disparate claims information within seconds and sans the possibility of typical human errors. The savings in time, money and effort can well be imagined even as security is safeguarded during these operations.

That’s not all. Even in functions requiring customer interactions, AI is making a big difference. Thanks to NLP (natural language processing), chatbots are answering customer queries 24×7. Moreover, these automated processes backed by ML techniques only need limited human support.

From elaborating on new credit cards or lending schemes to updating insurance plans, scrutinising customer data and providing a completely-customised experience, AI-enabled tools are fostering greater customer satisfaction at much lower costs. Consequently, this helps in enhanced customer retention and brand loyalty.

As digital technology evolves at an exponential pace, industry analysts expect more changes within a decade in the banking and fintech sectors vis-à-vis the entire past century. Naturally, the momentum in growth is also bound to increase. While India’s fintech market was valued at around INR1920 billion in 2019, it is slated to touch INR6207 billion by 2025. Between 2020 and 2025, this will translate into a CAGR of about 22.7%.

According to a Research and Market report, ‘Fintech Market in India 2020’, India is one of the world’s fastest-growing fintech markets. By March 2020, among the world’s emerging markets, India and China registered the highest fintech adoption rate of 87%. Compared to this, the worldwide average adoption rate was 64% only. This accelerated growth has been driven by the Digital India mission and a slew of initiatives such as Jan Dhan Yojana, Unified Payments Interface, Aadhar and Demonetisation.

Dual Influencers

Despite this, the lack of consumer confidence in digital payment modes and the ever-rising threat of data security breaches and cybercrimes were barriers to faster growth. But the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting lockdowns have nudged customers to embrace digital offerings due to the greater physical security of contactless transactions undertaken from the safe confines of homes.

Without doubt, multiple downsides notwithstanding, the pandemic has come as a blessing in disguise for all fintech players. These include the payments (m-wallets and point-of-sales services), lending (banks, NBFCs, HFCs, online lenders, etc.), insurance and other segments promoting digital means of doing business.

Nonetheless, the impact of COVID-19 has been twofold. On the one hand, job losses, pay cuts and furloughs have led to a tremendous drop in discretionary spending, impacting digital transactions too. On the other, housebound families have been undertaking online shopping with gusto. Propelled by the online shopping impetus, digital payment modes have seen around a 42% rise.[1]

Utility bill payments, healthcare, food and grocery shopping, among others, have all been witnessing a swift rise in online transactions. Yet, this growth has been offset by the severe downturn in the fashion, entertainment, travel and tourism sectors, which have almost ground to a standstill. As the lockdown and social distancing restrictions are eased progressively, a bounce-back in these verticals will help the Indian fintech industry log higher transactions.

Meanwhile, automation in the fintech industry is increasing by leaps and bounds. Technologies such as blockchain, biometrics, predictive analytics, IoT, augmented reality, virtual reality, cloud computing and quantum computing, to name a few, are offering incremental as well as comprehensive savings in monetary and non-monetary terms.

Overall, fintech players are benefitting from the higher efficiency, security and faster turnaround times offered by automation – all of which are boosting bottom-lines, leading to greater profitability.

The report has been structured with thorough market research administered by a team of industry experts, dynamic analysts, skilful forecasters, and well-known researchers. The report talks about all significant global Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality (AR and VR) market viewpoints on the current market status alongside notable information.

Some of the leading players featured in the report include Google, Wikitude GmbH, Sony, Microsoft, PTC, Oculus VR (Facebook), Osterhout Design Group, HTC, Samsung Electronics, Magic Leap, Visteon, Zugara, Daqri, Infinity Augmented Reality, Eon Reality, Continental, Blippar, MAXST, Vuzix, Upskill, Apple, Intel

Market segmentation is by product types: Hardware and Devices, Software and Services

Market segmentation, by applications/end users: Consumer, Enterprise, Healthcare, Aerospace and Defense, Others

The varying scenarios of the overall global Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality (AR and VR) market have been shown in this report. Industry participants can reform their strategies and approaches by examining the market size forecast mentioned in this report.

NOTE: Our analysts monitoring the situation across the globe explains that the market will generate remunerative prospects for producers post COVID-19 crisis. The report aims to provide an additional illustration of the latest scenario, economic slowdown, and COVID-19 impact on the overall industry.

Other reports offer better glimmers of hope and positivity for the market, in unpredictable and ever changing times.

Indeed the pandemic itself has helped some providers innovate further and expand operations:

Pandemic Sees companies surge in use of AR 

AREA members offer pandemic support 

The Short term roles of AI and AR in the post-pandemic digital landscape. 

Thanks largely to the COVID-19 pandemic, digital collaboration tools became critically important to enterprises and small businesses in 2020, with multi-person video chats and team messaging apps becoming mandatory as offices moved to remote work, says an article on VentureBeat. Less conspicuously, augmented reality technologies gained traction this year within certain industries, enabling people to “see” digital people, objects, and data as holograms within different spaces; AR allows five co-workers in separate home offices to collaboratively refine a photorealistic 3D backpack design, or sit at a common table in a virtual space for a group discussion.

As 2020 comes to a close, it’s clear that AR took only half steps towards the goalposts I laid out one year ago: Yes, new hardware, software, and wireless technologies reached enterprise audiences this year, but COVID-19 cast a dark cloud over everything, contributing at least somewhat to the predicted thinning of the AR herd without dramatically changing the list of players. What should have been a global rollout of Nreal’s Light AR glasses instead became only regional, 5G and Wi-Fi 6 became more widespread but not ubiquitous, and compelling apps designed for AR headsets began to chase larger markets of VR and mobile device users to build larger user bases.

Even so, the latest enterprise augmented reality trends are significant to technical decision makers because AR will increasingly provide organizations with tools to collaborate from multiple locations, visualize information, and share digital products with both internal and external audiences. Taking COVID-19’s continued impacts into account, here are three enterprise AR trends that are likely to be important in 2021, regardless of whether the virus keeps most people out of traditional offices throughout the coming year.

1. Growing leadership and organization-wide comfort with AR concepts
2. Increased conversion of physical assets into digital assets for AR
3. Continued improvements in enterprise AR hardware

Read about all 3 above points in detail on VentureBeat

One use case of AR discussed in the article is Swiss equipment manufacturer Bühler Group’s use of Schneider Electric’s ExoStruxure Augmented Operator Advisor (AOA). This enables operator access to information such as safety instructions, checklists, CAD drawings, and manuals, overlaid onto physical equipment using a mobile device’s camera. Human error, repair time, and downtime are all greatly reduced as a result of the technology.

Preston Lockwood, Maintenance Manager at the Lexington facility of Schneider Electric, has said that AOA allows for flexibility, as any operator can complete a task with AR guidance and support.

Safety

The visibility that AR provides in regards to identifying sensors on machinery means that workers are safer, and time is saved. Technicians can see sensors and valves in real time and identify problems without having to “lock out”. This previously involved technicians opening the gate and locking out the machine, which exposed equipment inside, creating a risk. Since AOA provides much more information, the team can go without entering the machine, which is a lot safer.

Leading the Way

Recently, Emerson Automation Solutions launched its Plantweb Optics Augmented Reality, aiding manufacturers with managing critical asset performance. Helping operators to locate assets is particularly useful for new employees or contract workers. Vineesh Kapoor, Product Management Director for Plantweb, explains that the AR application provides a route towards a device, reducing time spent. Additionally, Plantweb Optics AR allows for better, faster decisions, as engineers can access data easily without extra conversations.

Field collaborations are significant in process industries, as AR enables technicians and experts to share a screen a fix assets faster and safer. Engineers can also access instructions and procedures quickly, which experts can overlay onto equipment via the AR app.

Emerson Automation Solutions also provides an ROI calculator to estimate AR payback and how much money is being saved by reducing field trips. Kapoor has further stated that many businesses are bringing in new talent from technical schools who require training. AR and VR enhance this experience, increasing engagement.

The article concludes by reiterating the huge benefit of AR, specifically in regards to saving time. Technicians can call the Plantweb Optics AR app and move through each step of repairing assets a lot quicker than before.

Read the full article here.